Bohdan Yaremenko: I Advise Lukashenka To Deal With Russian Border, Not Ukrainian

The Belarusian regime should be given an unambiguous assessment.

Recently Lukashenka has made yet another verbal attack at Ukraine. The dictator said that he was going to "close the border with Ukraine for the bandits." What is the reason for the anti-Ukrainian statement of the Belarusian ruler?

The website Сharter97.org applied for comment to director of the fund "Maidan of Foreign Affairs", head of the Kyiv organization of the "UKROP" party Bohdan Yaremenko.

- On September 22, the UN General Assembly put the item "Situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine" on the agenda. How would you comment on the demarche of the Belarusian delegation, which voted against it? Ukrainian diplomats called to move the negotiation platform on the Donbas away from Minsk. Do you support such a proposal?

- Me and my colleagues at the analytical center "Maidan of Foreign Affairs" have been promoting this idea since 2014. We immediately stated that such a choice of a venue for negotiations is a big mistake that does not help Ukraine in resolving the conflict, but gives Lukashenka additional space for external and internal political maneuvers. Absolutely groundless and undeserved.

Ukrainian diplomacy behaves quite inertially. Such issue should have been raised much earlier. After all, the first such vote was back in 2014, when Belarus did not support Ukraine's position on the issue of the occupied territories.

Today we observe the consequence of the fact that sooner or later Minsk will have to take into account the consequences of its position on the territorial integrity of Ukraine in the Ukrainian-Belarusian relations.

So, the false and crafty position that Belarus supports the integrity of Ukraine, but votes contrary in the UN and other grounds, such a sweet and naive lie, is unlikely to satisfy the Ukrainian authorities. Ukrainian diplomacy begins sending signals to Lukashenka in advance of meetings at the highest level, so that he prepares to explain his position.

- Literally three days after the summit in Sochi, Lukashenka states that "the border with Ukraine should be closed from bandits". Quite an anti-Ukrainian statement. Do you think it is conditioned by the meeting with Putin?

- I do not see any political grounds for calling the meetings of Putin and Lukashenka summits. The summit is a meeting of the heads of equal states. And in this case we are seeing the meeting of the subordinate and the boss. Lukashenka, who is not able to effectively lead the country without financial influences from Russia, is forced to go in the fairway of Russia's political position. Therefore, everything that concerns Ukraine, apart from really minor things, will be dictated by Russian-Belarusian relations and considerations of seeking loyalty from the Kremlin, a desire to fawn upon in the search for solutions to economic issues.

- You said that Ukrainian diplomacy reacts rather inertly to such statements and actions. What should be the adequate reaction of Kyiv to Lukashenka's anti-Ukrainian rhetoric?

- Ukrainian diplomacy is traditionally capable of surprising, having failed to do obvious things. Therefore, it is difficult to say about what this turn of relations may end and, maybe, the appearance of discrepancies and disagreements with Belarus. But it is absolutely clear that Ukraine has long had to define its relations with Belarus as with a not-sovereign state. As with the continuation of Russia's policy. Ukraine has no grounds to consider Minsk as a trading partner or a friendly state.

We should regard Belarus as a possible continuation of Russian armed aggression in any of its forms. Hybrid and non-hybrid. This does not make us enemies with Belarusians, but the Belarusian regime should be given an unambiguous assessment.

Today the level of our relations does not correspond to their character. Such relations should exist between sovereign states and equal partners, who do not have a hidden agenda. Belarus has such an agenda. It is dictated by Russia.

- What consequences can an increase in military presence at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border cause?

- I do not think that without the Russian financing the Belarusian budget is capable of breakthrough solutions and a significant increase in technical and other means at the border. If Lukashenka is concerned about the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on Belarus, then let him not worry about the border with Ukraine, but about the border with Russia, through which mercenaries fighting on the side of terrorists enter Ukraine.

The people who are qualified killers and after a while will return to Belarus with weapons. I think that Belarus should have other priorities in the sphere of security.